"The Web Changed My Life!"

Without the help these women found online, they might still be desperate for answers.

Those who go online for medical or psychological advice are wise to be wary. There are diet-supplement scams, illegal prescription drugs for sale and erroneous information at every click. Nonetheless, there's no doubt that the Web, when used discerningly, can radically change things for the better. Want inspiring proof? Keep reading.

"I let go of anger." No matter how hard she tried, Brandi Fletcher, 33, a single mom and ad executive in San Diego, frequently found herself getting into arguments, whether it was with coworkers, acquaintances or rude people on the street. But when her relationship with her daughter's father ended, conflict became a constant in her life. Regular phone contact with him was a necessary part of their custody arrangement. Every time the phone rang and she saw his name on the caller ID, her heart sank. Fletcher knew the conversation would end like nearly all the others before—with an angry outburst that would take most of the day to recover from. Soon the ongoing battle was sapping virtually all her happiness and energy. That's when Fletcher realized she needed help.

Unsure if she had the time to devote to traditional counseling, Fletcher decided to follow a friend's advice to try an online therapy site. Fletcher enjoyed the convenience of having her sessions at home and found that when there was no therapist physically in the room, she could launch right into her feelings. "Because she couldn't see me, my defenses weren't up," she says. She scheduled a handful of 60- to 90-minute weekly sessions, which often included a brief wrap-up phone call. Even better, Fletcher loved that she could save session transcripts on her computer: "I gained more insight every time I reread them."

It didn't take long before Fletcher understood where she'd been going wrong: When she reacted to her ex by yelling or being sarcastic, she only fueled their arguments. And once she recognized her role in the fights, she figured out how to defuse them. "When our conversations became unpleasant, I learned to say, 'I'm sorry you feel that way. Let's talk again when you're more calm.' Then I'd say good-bye and hang up. Before, I'd slam down the phone," she says. This self-awareness has been life-altering: "I feel empowered instead of like a victim," she says. "I finally began to see that I can't control other people's behavior, only my own," she says.

"I have three great kids." As a labor and delivery nurse, Sandy Green (name has been changed) never doubted that she'd have her own trip through the maternity ward. But after six months of trying, tests revealed that her husband produced few sperm. After one unsuccessful round of in vitro fertilization, the pair decided to use donor sperm. "It was hard to give up having my husband's biological child, but we wanted a houseful of kids and this seemed the best way," says Green, 34, who lives in Biloxi, Mississippi.

The hospital where she worked maintained its own sperm bank, but information on the donors was limited to height, weight, hair and eye color, blood type and health status. The details hardly filled a sheet of paper, let alone provided a sense of the person. "This is such an emotionally charged decision," Green says. "The donor is standing in for the person I'd already chosen to be the father of my children. I wanted him to share as many traits as possible with my husband." Green nonetheless selected a donor, but she failed to conceive.

Two years later the couple moved, and their new doctor recommended they try a commercial sperm bank with an extensive website and donor profiles. The website offered much more detail about the donors, including health history, family history and childhood photos. Searching the database was simple. Because the Greens wanted someone with an advanced degree, they narrowed their search to men with doctorates. Soon, the pair cut the list down to two. But when they listened to the audio interviews available on the site, Green immediately rejected one: "The guy sounded like a nerd, not someone I would have had sex with!" The second sounded more like her type. After requesting a more detailed profile, along with his medical file, the Greens ordered two vials of his sperm, which were sent to her physician. A few weeks later, she was pregnant with twins. When the boys turned 18 months, the couple tried again. Although their original donor was no longer available, they found another good choice. "Amazingly, our youngest is a dead ringer for my husband," Green says.

"My sister found me a lifesaving treatment." One day in April 2002, Amy Pomykal's husband came home to discover her lying on the kitchen floor in the throes of a seizure. That night an MRI revealed the horrifying cause: a malignant brain tumor. "I thought, This is it. I'm going to die," Pomykal, 33, recalls. The doctors didn't offer the Dallas flight attendant much hope. Pomykal had surgery, followed by chemotherapy and radiation. But after three months, she was too weak to continue.

From the day of Pomykal's diagnosis, her sister Keri McClure had been surfing the Web trying to learn everything she could about the disease. When it became clear that traditional procedures wouldn't work, McClure focused on clinical trials. "We knew she would survive only with an experimental treatment," McClure says. She found one on a site dedicated to people with brain cancer: Scientists at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, were developing a vaccine using patients' own white blood cells. "It was the least invasive of any of the trials she qualified for," McClure says. Pomykal enrolled as soon as she could. It's now been three years since her last injection, and it appears that the tumor may actually be gone. No one can say Pomykal is cured, but her sister's online research gave her the two things she did not have before: hope and time.